Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two host Rylan Clark had fans worried earlier this month as he confirmed his mum Linda has been ill.
Linda is a familiar face on our telly screens, having appeared alongside her son on Celebrity Gogglebox, and captured the hearts of the nation with her witty comments.
But as a long-term sufferer of Crohn’s disease, Linda has plenty to contend with in her daily life.
READ MORE:Strictly host Rylan Clark worries fans as he admits co-star mum Linda ‘isn’t well’
So much so that her son has set cameras up around her home to check on his mum while he’s away on filming projects.
Daily Star takes a look into Linda’s health battles, from her cancer diagnosis to her near-death experiences.
Crohn's battle
Rylan has been very candid about Linda’s health woes in the past, and explained her case of Crohn’s is “severe”.
Crohn’s is a long-term condition which causes inflammation in the digestive system.
Speaking to Crohn’s and Colitis UK, the X Factor star explained: “My mum has lived with severe Crohn’s Disease since 1984, four years before I was born, and the condition really shaped my childhood.
“She has had to undergo multiple operations to remove damaged parts of her bowel and she takes medication every day.”
He added: “When I was growing up, I thought my mum was the only person with the condition. I support Crohn’s and Colitis UK to help other families know they are not alone.
“My mum often felt embarrassed about her diagnosis, but nobody with Crohn’s or Colitis should feel like this.”
On drip '24/7'
Fans were worried about Linda when they spotted she was connected to a drip during a Celebrity Gogglebox stint earlier this year.
Rylan took to Twitter to clear up any confusion about the IV as worried fans begged him for answers, with one asking: “@Rylan is mum ok? Saw the drip on #Gogglebox.”
The X Factor star said at the time: “Had a lot of people ask, mum is fine, she has a TPN line for a feed…
“To do with her Crohn’s. V normal. Thanks for asking xx.”
He later confirmed on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast: “ cannot imagine my life without her. I mean she has gone through quite a lot with her health, she has got Crohn's disease. She is on a drip feed now like pretty much 24/7 whenever she can get on it.
"I will do anything for my mum.”
'Nearly died three times'
Rylan confirmed that his mum’s ongoing Crohn’s battle meant she has nearly lost her life “three times”.
During his X Factor stint, she could only manage to attend one of her son’s live shows.
Speaking in 2019, Rylan confirmed: “ I don’t think Crohn's gets spoken about enough. I nearly lost my mum last year, again, for the third time."
He went on: “With all due respect, the hospital just said to her, ‘If you didn’t come in one more week, that would have been it’.
“My mum has been ill my entire life. When I was on X Factor, she only managed to get to one live show.
“That was actually quite upsetting for her to see that, who wants to see me singing?”
Cameras in home
Rylan also revealed he has cameras set up in his mum’s house while she was recovering from bowel surgery.
Speaking to The Mirror, the star confirmed: “I’ve got cameras in Mum’s house, so I can see her and make sure she’s OK.
"That’s why we agreed to do Gogglebox, because my mum feels comfortable and it’s at my house. She’s not physically doing anything, she’s just sat on my sofa."
Commenting on her condition, Linda said: “I'm not well a lot of the time. I have nurses come round every morning and evening to give me a special feed.
"I’ve had Crohn’s since I was 30 and used to be in so much pain I’d be crying all the time. It was unbearable – I felt like I wanted to get a knife and punch my stomach open.
“Now I don’t have pain, which is a relief, but I’ve got to have nutrition put in me. Everything goes straight through where I’ve hardly got any bowel left."
Stoma bag surgery
Now Linda is fitted with a stoma bag after three major bowel operations.
She told OK! that she only has “70cm” of bowel left, explaining: “So if I have a drink of water I’ve got to empty the stoma straight away.
“My life is in the bathroom. I’ve got a line in me now – I don’t know how long it will be until the doctors can’t do any more. There’s too much going on in there. I feel alright, but I get down because I can’t go out and I can’t do what I want to do.”
Cancer diagnosis
In 2021, Rylan confirmed that Linda had been diagnosed with skin cancer – though thankfully it was “not life-threatening”.
The star explained on his BBC Radio show: “So mummy, and it's all fine, she's got skin cancer on her face, but she's absolutely fine. It's not life-threatening and it's just spread a little bit, so we're getting it all cut away."
Linda required three stitches under her eye and several biopsies to check the cancer had gone after having it removed.
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